


Come Around Again, Redux: To Arrive at the Same Place

by SnowStormSkies



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: Bullying, Challenge Response, Gen, Revelations, Twins, twinship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:56:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowStormSkies/pseuds/SnowStormSkies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Because as much as the teachers hated him, as much as the other kids bullied him, as much as he was forced to be a loner, and an outcast and a fucking pariah, he was never alone. Never. He always had Tom, always had his twin at his side, in his mind, in his heart and soul. </i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>--</p><p>Bill’s experience when he comes to terms with the fact that not everyone gets a twin. Also, school sucks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come Around Again, Redux: To Arrive at the Same Place

**Title:** Come Around Again, Redux: To Arrive at the Same Place.

 **Author:** SnowStormSkies

 **Universe:** Tokio Hotel (RPF)

 **Theme/Topic:** Bill’s experience when he comes to terms with the fact that not everyone gets a twin. Also, school _sucks._

**Rating: T**. There's bullying, adult language, and references to adult situations as well.

 **Characters:** Tom and Bill.

 **Warnings/Spoilers:** For their homelife, and the fact they were bullied at school.

 **Word Count:** 1361.

 **Time:** Two hours or so this time. I did write it in between twitter, Age of Empires: Age of Kings (which I'm still playing), and LJ messaging people. And a comment war. That was fun....

 **Summary:** Because as much as the teachers hated him, as much as the other kids bullied him, as much as he was forced to be a loner, and an outcast and a fucking pariah, he was never alone. Never. He always had Tom, always had his twin at his side, in his mind, in his heart and soul. 

**Dedication** : To twins who have a special twin bond. Sometimes, you need reminding of it.

 **A/N:** From this prompt of the September 2009 FQF – 36. baby!twins The first time Bill and Tom realize that not everyone gets to have a twin. gen (submitted by cyberdigi). I’m sorry. It just spoke to me for some reason; and then it spoke to me again and I created this as a sort of sequel/counterpoint to Tom's experience in Come Around Again. It's been a very interesting journey into the minds of the twins, doing this. There's a lot of supposition on my part, and playing up the _mythical twin bond_ that they've mentioned but this is taken up to eleven. And Tom's very loving. I dunno, I think I'm craving some lovely Tomi right now. And it's also been intriguing to know the difference between writing for a six year old and writing for someone who is thirteen and very teenagery and Bill-esque.

 **Distribution:** Nyet. Not for you. Me. [And AO3.](367127) and TH_fanfic [here](http://th-fanfic.livejournal.com/831906.html#cutid1) **** __

**_ Come Around Again: _ **

**_ \- Redux -  _ **

**_ To Arrive at the Same Place _ **

  


Bill’s always been a bit… special. Different. Weird. No wait, back to the first one. Yeah, that’s the word. **Special**. He sees the world from a different place – understands things in a different way. Bill operates on a slightly off kilter angle to the rest of the population. He tends to ignore the things that don’t interest him and focus on the things that do, which is probably the reason how he can set fire to things in the science labs at school but not even notice until the teacher runs in with the fire extinguisher and a lot of drama. He got fire extinguisher foam in his hair, as well the second time. 

It was only twice, in his defence. He got caught up with thinking about stuff and he _forgot_ about the stupid thing until it got a bit too hot and flamey for him to ignore it anymore. 

The third time wasn’t even his fault. He was thirteen, and sitting in chemistry but he could think of a billion places he’d rather be than sat in stuffy CH6, which stank of sulphur and someone’s sweaty shoes, and too many different types of deodorant from all the students crammed inside. His partner was too busy chatting up the girl next to them to realise that the beaker of stuff start smoking before it sprouted foot high flames. In fact, nobody noticed until it nearly set the wooden table top alight. The fact that Bill had been too busy writing song lyrics in the margins of his work book to actual monitor the thing had nothing to do with _anything_ , despite what the teacher said. 

_ That  _ had been fun, watching Mr Kroheler turn redder and redder and actually start _yanking_ at his own hair (reducing what little he had to fluffy tufts of ash grey and white) as he shouted at the two of them about being irresponsible and dangers to society and horrible little children who couldn’t pay attention to dangerous experiments. At least, it had been funny until Bill got slapped with ten hours of after school detention and yet another letter to take home to Mama. 

Then the bell rung and everyone dived for the door and freedom from the smoky classroom. 

Outside, it hadn’t got any better. Other students had congratulated him for being such a monumental fuck-up as per usual, asked him how long he’d been a budding arsonist, and was his stupid brother a pyro as well? and Bill had stuck his middle finger up at them, even though Mama said that was a horrible thing to do ( _why?_ ) and stormed off out of the science block to find somewhere where people wouldn’t shove him into the lockers, or try to pull his bag off of his shoulder or trip him up like they always did. It sucked to be the bully’s favourite victim, sometimes. Scratch that, it sucked _all_ of the time. 

Predictably, they tried to follow him, but he was a good runner and he lost them somewhere between the Art block and the Sports Hall so all that was okay. 

Tugging his scarf tighter around his neck, he wondered where to go now. He couldn’t go to lunch – he’d be lynched just like he was every other day he tried to go there. All the classrooms were locked or in use, and he had no desire to eat his lunch in the toilets _for the third_ time in a week because any more than twice and it might become a habit, and it really wasn’t the sort of habit he was looking to cultivate right now. 

Such are the trials of being one of the two school pariahs, he thought to himself. 

Bill didn’t know what that word _pariah_ meant exactly, but he’d heard his teachers use it often enough about him and his brother and even Mama had said it when she was talking to Gordon and his father about them late at night. He had snuck down for a glass of water while Tom waited upstairs in their bedroom but they were in the kitchen and he heard it, but he couldn’t find the courage to look it up in the dictionary the next day at school. He knew it was bad though. Mama had sounded so disappointed and sad that Bill had had to restraint himself from going and giving her a hug because when Mama was sad like that, it was never good. 

Making his mind up, he wandered across the school field, heedless of the fact that it was muddy and waterlogged from the recent snowfall and eventually found his way up the little hill on the other side, grabbing onto exposed tree roots to pull himself up the step embankment, just as the Heavens opened. Again. Lucky for him, there was the reason he came all the way over here was just behind the first row of trees: the old Cricket Pavilion.  

Nobody ever came over here – it was supposedly haunted and the popular kids told stories about how it was full of druggies and needles covered with _AIDS_ and _human blood_ and there were _dead people_ buried in the floors and shit like that. They warned other kids that they’d be _murdered_ if they dared to open the rusty hinged doors by the resident mad axe murderer. 

Bill liked it. 

It was old, and really creaky, and a bit musty smelling, but it was dry and out of the way and there weren’t any _bodies_ in the floors or needles or even druggies or homeless people. It was just full of tables and chairs for the school fairs under tarps and old sports equipment and gardening tools that had never been moved in the whole time he’d been coming here. 

It wasn’t all the creature comforts of home, but it was seriously better than anywhere else at school. He put his bag down on the floor, and sat down on the closest couch. The plastic cover rustled under him but it was dry and not even that dusty because he’d made sure to keep it clean for when he came back the next time. There was always a next time. Always. 

“Hey.” 

And there was his other half. He should have known that Tom would follow him. Where one went, the other followed. That was the rule of being a twin; you had to be together. You could never go so far away that one wouldn’t find the other. He would know – they’d both tried it, both failed at it. 

“Hi.” He muttered back. He didn’t want to talk right now. He felt like… He didn’t know what he felt like. Something. Anything. He felt just… tired? Sad? Worn out and so done with school it wasn’t funny? He settled on the vague description of not right, but it wasn’t enough to explain just exactly how he felt right now.  

Plastic crackled beside him as Tom lowered himself onto the sofa in silence. Bill didn’t look at his twin, as the dreadhead shuffled closer, closer, so close that they were practically joined all down Bill’s left side. They sat like that for a while; in the still air, staring into the middle distance, just letting themselves take a second and _breathe_ and just _be_ ; until Bill felt it. It was nothing big, nothing he hadn’t felt before - Tom’s heat passing through his oversized jeans, past Bill’s own denim, into Bill’s skin, into his flesh and wrapped around his bones, but it was too much after the day he’d had and he couldn’t hold back anymore more. He breathed in, once, twice and then it happened. Just like it always did. 

He burst into tears. 

“Oh, Bibi.” Tom wrapped his arms around Bill and held him tight as Bill started to sob in earnest. It _sucked._ He _hated_ school, and stupid science teachers, and horrible popular kids who picked on him and slammed him into walls and tried to hunt him down for a good thrashing at least twice a week and most of all, he _hated_ being so fucking powerless to stop it! 

He hated having to wolf down his lunch so nobody could steal it; he hated that teachers would pick on him when he didn’t know an answer, but deliberately ignore him when he did know and put his hand up to answer. He hated changing for P.E when everyone would laugh at how skinny he was and the teacher would shout at him for having piercings and how was he expected to teach a kid who wore stupid shit like make-up, dressed like a bloody sissy he-she? He hated the stupid detention hall, and he hated the horrible woman who oversaw the hall, who sighed and made faces whenever she had to see either of the twins in there and they were in there _a lot_.

He hated that nobody did anything about it. 

Nobody cared. Or if they did care, they couldn’t make it stop. Not Dad, not Gordon, not the police. Not even Mama, even though he loved her, could get the teachers to stop the bullying, especially when it was the teachers doing the actual bullying a lot of the time, and now that he and Tom were separated all the time, it was always Bill against the world, all by himself. 

Or so he felt. 

“No, Bill, you’re not.” Tom stroked down the side of Bill’s neck and answered the question that was raging in Bill’s mind over everything else: ‘Am I alone in this?’ 

“But it feels like it!” Bill sobbed, not caring that his mascara was running, and his eye shadow was smearing all over Tom’s sweater. “I feel like I’m on my own in this great big horrible sea of fucking **hell** and nobody’s there and I’m so _alone_ -”

“You’re not.” Tom pulled him back, made him look at a face that was just like his own under all the make-up and the tears. “You’re never alone, Bill.” The same lips, the same eyes, the same nose. Identical. His twin’s face was his own face. Tom ran his fingers under Bill’s eyes, wiping away all the mess from his crying, even as new tears fell. “I’m always here. Always.” He smiled at him and looked so fucking amazing and so very _Tomi_ in this dusty cricket pavilion that Bill was hit with a thought so strong, it knocked all the air from his chest, and made his heart skip a beat, another beat, and another before it came back to normal but Bill couldn’t think about that right now, because the thought was still _there_ in his head. 

Bill threw his arms around Tom again, and it was like coming home – no. It was _better_ than coming home because this was… this was coming back to Tom, and he clung to Tom’s oversized hoodie with both hands as he fought against the new realisation in his mind. 

Because as much as the teachers hated him, as much as the other kids bullied him, as much as he was forced to be a loner, and an outcast and a fucking pariah, he was never alone. Never. He always had Tom, always had his twin at his side, in his mind, in his heart and soul. 

It hurt, it hurt, it hurt so much to wrap his mind around that but it was so right and so good that it almost didn’t hurt at the same time. He felt like he could stay here forever, in this safe place where there was just Tom and nobody else, nothing else, nothing that he didn’t want or need except his other half. 

Tom leant backwards, and drew Bill up to lay on the sofa properly, and Bill went willingly, and soon enough he was curled into Tom’s arms, his cheek on Tom’s chest, his skinny arms around his brother and their hands laced together. It was safety, it was right, it was better than home, being here, in this embrace. He was safe. He was in the safest and best place in the whole wide universe right now and he knew that but it was such a scary thought that he almost couldn’t breathe right. It was only the steady _beat-beat-beat_ of Tom’s heart thrumming through his chest and under his cheek that kept Bill from completely losing everything right now. 

Tom ran his hand up and down Bill’s side as he looked down into Bill’s face and Bill had to close his eyes and shiver as he saw the love Tom had for him in his eyes, because it was so scary and so not scary at the same time because it was just showing him what he could feel in his heart and in his head in another way. 

Inside his head, he could feel _Tom_ , swirling around as his younger twin’s mind thrashed and broke and remade itself, all rushing winds and howling storm clouds whirled in to a frenzy. Tom’s mind was, by contrast to Bill’s, an ocean of calm, little foam topped waves of Tomness rushing against the tsunami of thoughts in Bill’s head as a reminder of ‘I’m here’ and ‘ready when you are’ and over and above everything else, ‘I love you.’ Without restraint, without holding back or trying to hide his feelings, Tom was laying himself bare for Bill to feel even as he struggled to cope inside his own head. 

How did people survive without this? How did they make it through the day without a twin by their side? How did they suffer through the pain of not having someone else’s mind attached to their own, not having someone who knew every thought in your head almost before you did?

How did they struggle through life, being _half a person?_

Because that’s what it felt like – Tom was half of Bill and Bill was half of Tom. How did people like Georg and Gustav deal with being only half a person, having only half a soul, half a heart? 

How did _Mama_ learn to function with only half of what Bill and Tom had? 

Bill clung to Tom, a lone survivor of the storm of his mind, even as he imagined what life could be like without Tom, without his other half by his side all the time, and his heart throbbed in his chest as he contemplated the horrific truth of the whole thing. 

It was terrible. Horrible. Unthinkably despicably unbearably painful. It was like looking at all the pictures of war and suffering in their history books but somehow it was _worse_ because it was _real_ and people couldn’t understand why Bill and Tom were like they were because they _didn’t know_ what it was like to be a twin. How did they make through life being so… so…. Bill didn’t even know the words to describe how it must feel because he didn’t know exactly and he didn’t think it even could be put into words if he could even come up with them. 

“How…?” He sobbed into Tom’s shirt, and so strong was their bond that he didn’t even have to explain _what_ – Tom knew exactly what he was thinking, what he was asking. 

“Because…” Bill could feel Tom’s thoughts shifting, moving around as he tried to explain such a hard concept to Bill. “Because they _don’t_ know.”

“How can they not?” Bill asked, his hand already reaching for Tom’s other one where it had become disconnected when Tom had reached up to move his dreads out of the way. “How can they not _know?”_

“Because they don’t have a twin.” Tom said, his eyes staring into Bill’s, connecting their minds together even as he spoke, “They don’t know what it’s like because they’ve never known any different. They’re living like that because that’s the only way they know how to.”

“But… doesn’t it hurt?” Bill was sure that it would hurt, living a half-life. 

“I don’t think so. I mean, Mama says she’s happy and when you look at her, you just know that she’s telling the truth about being happy. I don’t think she could feel happy if she hurt like we do when we’re pushing on the bond... or if we lost each other.” Tom stroked his fingers absently down Bill’s side again as he thought out loud. “I think… they might feel like something’s missing, or that they’re lonely sometime in their heart… but I don’t think they understand what it’s like to be a twin so it’s not such a big deal to them. If you don’t know what you’re missing, you can’t miss it, can you?”

“I guess not.” Bill wiped his eyes on his shoulder, and then tucked his head back on Tom’s chest. There’s no way anybody could be happy if they felt the emptiness that threatened to take over Bill’s heart if he tried too hard to pull on their bond, shouted that he _hated_ Tom and wished he’d been an only child. Nobody could smile through that sort of pain, not even Mama. 

“I think that what we have is special.” Tom said, and Bill felt the emotion make Tom’s chest hitch but he stayed quiet to let Tom have his say. “I think that Mama is right when she says that a lot of people don’t feel like we do. Don’t understand how deep this bond runs.” They’d both heard all the horrible rumours, that they were together like fucking each other together, that they were freaks and needed to be taken away by men in white coats, that they should have been separated at birth. That last one hurt most of all – even thinking about growing up separated from each other made Bill’s heart hurt so much, he couldn’t imagine what it would be like if it actually happened. “Even though people misjudge it a hell of a lot, and call us names and say we’re lying… that’s not true. It’s… it’s…” Tom fumbled for the words he was looking for. 

Bill supplied them. “It’s special.”

“It is.” Tom didn’t like to talk about feelings normally, but he carried on. “You’re half of me, Bill. Half of everything that is me – my heart, my mind, my soul, that’s you.” Bill felt another tear roll down his cheek, but he ignored it. “I don’t know about everyone else, and I don’t care right now. You’re my twin, and what we feel together,” He tapped over Bill’s heart and then his own, “what we are… I don’t think I could live without it.” 

“We go together?” Bill said, saying their age-old promise. They’d been saying it for years, as long as they could remember and he knew it was true. If Tom died, Bill would die. If Bill died, Tom would die. 

“We go together.” 

And this was what it meant to be a twin, Bill realised as he felt the swell of emotion rising up from Tom, from their bond together as he finally understood what Tom was saying, had been saying for a long time now.  

It meant never being separate from someone; it meant being tied to them forever and ever and ever. Through pain, and heart ache, and sickness and through all the bad times and the good and the horrible horrible horrible hell that was fucking school, through the fame that Bill always swore they’d one day command, through the money worries and the divorce of Mama and … Dad… and all the arguments they’d been having recently, he’d always have his other half with him, beside him, inside of his soul.  And in the end… not even Death itself would split them up. 

It shook Bill to his core, made him gasp with the razor sharpness of the thought even as he accepted it with open arms.

 

When he looked up into Tom’s eyes, desperately seeking reassurance that was he was feeling was true and right even though he _knew_ it was, he didn’t find it, couldn't find anything close to reassurance in those hazel eyes he knew so well. What he saw... what he was instead was better. It was acceptance, understanding… trust… Love. And he breathed in sharply because _he_ knew what that meant. It clicked in his head, slotted the last bit of the puzzle into place and he felt Tom’s arms tighten around him as he came to yet another realisation. 

Tom had _already_ known about it. 

Tom had already accepted that they were together forever, shoulder to shoulder against the world for…. For _years_ , he saw as he gazed into Tom’s eyes, looked into the emotions he could find there. His twin had known, and waited for him to catch up, to make the same judgement on his own and Bill’s hand tightened around Tom’s own as he realised that Tom had always been prepared for this moment. Tom had always been aware of how rare their bond was, how unique even in the world of twins they were and he had made sure to let Bill catch up in his own time. He’d known and now they both knew and it was still _okay_. They were still alright, the world had returned from being sideways and Bill’s maelstrom in his mind had left, abruptly ceasing to exist in the way that most times the storms did. In its wake came a calm serenity of understanding, one shared by Tom even as they drew back a little from each other, and rock hard conviction that what they had, the feelings and emotions and thoughts they shared was right. Was good. Was exactly what was meant to be. More tears sprung up in his eyes, but they were tears of joy, of happiness and relief, not the pain that had drawn them out the first time. 

Tom’s eyes were bright as well, even as he wrapped his arms around Bill so tight that Bill could feel the bones Tom’s arms against his ribs. He didn’t say anything as they lay there on a plastic covered sofa in the Old Cricket Pavilion in the woods, just being themselves, revelling in being together, as only they could be. 

They were twins. This was what it meant to be a _twin._ Not alone. Not one against the world. Not living without knowing your other half, your soul mate, your everything. It was a promise. Always a promise. To go together. To be together. To move, and live, and love, and breathe, and believe… _._

_  
_

_ together. _

**Author's Note:**

> And to finish off, some pictures of young, sweet Twins. 
> 
> An adorable looking Tom....
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> With a sweet looking Bill as well. 
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
